On a late September afternoon, I found myself in a small French village at the feet of the Pyrenees. The trip to get there had lasted almost two days,from my little town in Southern Italy to Rome and then to London, from there to Biarritz, and finally to Saint Jean Pied de Port bytrain. I couldn’t believe I was there; the sun was hiding behind the mountains, everything was pervaded by a faint scent of orange. Many people got off to that tiny station from the train, all of them carrying a backpack: it’s there that many people decide to start their Camino de Santiago, and so did I.

The long spiritual way to Santiago

We all walked silently to the top of the hill, entering the medieval walls of the village. Everyone knew that the first thing to do was asking for information at the pilgrims’ office, they would have helped us to find an accommodation for all of us. There was no room for me in the hostel, I was placed in a small and cosy room at an elderly lady’s home. While I was trying to fall asleep in that room that smelled of old objects an life, I thought I couldn’t believe I was there. “What am I doing here?”, I was constantly to myself. But there was no time to think, that was the first step of an extraordinary adventure.

The day after, at six in the morning, it was still dark. The fog was covering the village, I couldn’t even see the Pyrenees in front of me. In the darkness, I saw two Italian girls met by chance the night before, Annamaria and Daniela and together e decide to take the first stage.

“If I had money to bet, I’d bet that I could endure at most a couple of days, it’s too much for me , I can’t do it ,” I told them as we were facing the first hill.

“You will get to Santiago, I tell you!”, replied the brave Annamaria. I would never forget her words. My backpack weighed a lot, my back was hurting, my feet painful. Along the way, dozens of pilgrims were climbing the rising path through the Pyrenees.

A milestone told us that we were entering the region of Navarra, Spain. What a magical place, the paladin Roland in the Chanson de Roland died right there, fighting the Moors. I was in the middle of a History book…and that was exciting! When we got to Roncesvalles after walking for about 25 km, it was sunset. Exhausted, we found accommodation in the hostel for pilgrims, called albergue everywhere along the Camino.

A Shower, my laundry, a sleeping bag on the mattress in a dormitory with dozens of other people:I didn’t know that this was gonna become my daily life for the next month. In the late evening, in the ancient church of Roncesvalles, after the Mass we received the blessing of the pilgrim, recited in various languages. It was a very touching moment. The first day had gone, and it had been very hard, I still didn’t know if I could make it .

Santiago de Compostela

“Santiago de Compostela 790 km” this is the sign you see leaving Roncesvalles. It was scary, but I knew that was the day I would have known if my Camino was gonna end there or get to destination. When we got to the village of Zubiri, there was no room in the albergue, but I found a place to sleep and amattress on the floor in the local gym. That night, while I was falling asleep in my sleeping bag, surrounded by the shadows of other pilgrims around me in the dim light that was coming through the windows, I felt like never before in my all life: I was laughing on my own, feeling happy, thinking about what an amazing experiencing I was living right there, I that moment. I realized that my most beautiful adventure had just started, all fears vanished, now I knew I was gonna make it!

“That night my adventure began”. (Christian)

That night my adventure began.

In those days of wander I have met wonderful people from all over the world, like Ilaria, who, like old friends of a lifetime, shared with me half of the Camino and many stories about our lives. And then Grant, on those dusty road of Camino for the third time, who used to live on a river boat in England. Lumy and Jorge, a nice couple from Canaries, with their puppy Paco, a lucky dog pictured all around the world, just “like in the movie Amelie“, they told me. And many, many others. Impossible to list all of them, so many faces, so many personal stories, all of them to be remembered forever, sometimes very different from each other, but linked by the feeling that we were not there by chance: on those dusty trails all of us with inner motivation, we were finding ourselves. I think tis is what makes the Camino de Santiago something different from any other trip : everybody who is there has its own, strong motivation.

What I experience there in a month it was days full of unforgettable adventures. Every day on the Camino was like a year in real life. At the end, I had the feeling of having been out of the world for a long, long time.

sleeping in a gym, in dirty hostels and weird rooms is daily life during the Camino

After sleeping in cozy parishes and churches, sometimes in weird-looking hovels, but also crowded dormitories and squalid hostels, after crossing Pamplona, Burgos, Leon, the rivers of Navarra, the highlands of Mesetas, surviving the extreme fatigue during the latest week and the crowding in Galicia, where the most adventurous part of the Camino ends and turns into tourism, after watching the memorable ceremony of the Botafumeiro in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela… there I was, on the Galician coast in Finisterre, literally at the “end of the world”, in front of my eyes the majestic Atlantic Ocean. I thanked my feet, that had been walking for 900 km and 35 days, every day never stopping, even enduring some blisters. I thanked my backpack, that was my “home” for a month. And eventually, I thanked my willingness that allowed me to get there without complaining, silently, enjoining the company of dozens of people I didn’t know before, and there, at the end, I finally enyojey one of the most beautiful sunsets in my life…